Thailand's airlines downgraded over safety concerns

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Thailand’s aviation industry has been downgraded for safety reasons in the US, leading to the possibility of bans on Thai-registered aircraft in Europe and Asia.

The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) reassessed the junta-ruled nation’s air services in July and found that it did not meet international standards.

"Today's announcement follows ongoing discussions with the government of Thailand which concluded on October 28," it said on its website.

The country has been consequently downgraded to a Category 2 rating in the US, which means that it “either lacks laws or regulations necessary to oversee air carriers in accordance with minimum international standards,” the FAA website states, “or its civil aviation authority – a body equivalent to the FAA for aviation safety matters – is deficient in one or more areas, such as technical expertise, trained personnel, record-keeping, or inspection procedures.”

The Category 2 rating allows Thai carriers to continue their existing services to the US but prevents them from establishing new services to the US. The country achieved its Category 1 rating in 1997, and held it following its last assessment in 2008.

This forced airlines, including budget carriers Thai AirAsia X, NokScoot and Asia Atlantic Airline, to cancel extra flights that they had been planning. Thai Airways, the national carrier, was also affected, which had to cancel "about five" new charter flights that were due to run in April, which is when Thailand's new year - known as Songkran - is celebrated.

A representative told Telegraph Travel that the audit revealed some safety concerns, primarily relating to air operator certification procedures. Thailand provided the ICAO with the details of its corrective actions and mitigation measures in early March.

A spokesman for the ICAO said today that it is presently working with Thailand "to help rectify some aspects of how it’s civil aviation authority oversees the implementation of international aviation safety standards."

Thai airlines were placed under special measures in March

The EU does not ban any Thai airlines at the moment but thenext update will be published around mid-December. A spokesman for the European Aviation Safety Agency said: "We inspected in October the Thai airlines which applied for a Third Country Operators (TCO) authorisation - authorisation that any non-European Union airline willing to fly to and out of the EU must get. They were OK."

New flights from Thai AirAsia X were blocked by Japan and South Korea

The FAA has previously downgraded the Philippines to a Category 2 rating while also imposing a complete flight ban on its airlines, with the EU later following its example in 2010. This was relaxed in 2013, with the country finally removed from the EU’s airline blacklist in June this year.

The FAA also banned Indonesia’s airlines for several years. It scored poorly on an ICAO safety audit in 2014. There are currently 59 of 63 Indonesian airlines banned from EU airspace, though this does not include the popular Garuda Indonesia and Indonesia Air Asia.